1) Runs nicely on P4 2.4GHz, JRE 1.6.0_07 on Linux, GFX is GF6600GT, driver version 100.14.11 (quite old).2) Don't see FPS meter, but it was smooth gaming experience, judging from mouse movement 30+ FPS.3) Seems ok, concept is very interesting I'm not sure how the shortcuts (1,2,3) for buildings work, I've always used the full buildings menu.4) I have shuttering after killing last enemy (affects both mouse movement and sounds/music), it stops after clicking on "continue" button in the end of mission dialog.

Also one minor thing, when switching between windowed modes, the real HW cursor is shown and at different place than the cursor in the game. When I eg. move window around a bit it disappears as it should be.

Problems with alt-tabbing, mouse etc - that's basic LWJGL handling and is the same in all our games, although I'm using a 2.3 nightly for this test. Might be fixed with the forthcoming 2.4... might not. Expect Intel drivers to have problems.

Instant crashing or crashing during gameplay - very likely broken drivers are to blame here Hard to think what to do about that except shrug and hope there are newer, fixed drivers available. We've got a completely new rendering engine now using VBOs where available which would probably account for the instability with certain chipsets beginning with I and ending in ntel. Or even ATI for that matter. There are absolutely no Java crash bugs that I've seen in the game for a long time, so if you come across a stacktrace somewhere, please feel free to tell me

Turret reloading progress - they have them already, look closely

Stuttering when end-of-level dialog appears - could well be we're up against the fill-rate limit for your graphics card, but I'd have thought this also occurs when the shop is visible too?

Missing graphics - broken drivers possibly. Admittedly I'm not checking max texture size and assuming 1024x1024 works ok. Naughty me. I don't reckon any cards incapable of handling 1024x1024 textures will be powerful enough to run the game anyway though.

Stuttering when end-of-level dialog appears - could well be we're up against the fill-rate limit for your graphics card, but I'd have thought this also occurs when the shop is visible too?

Doesn't look like that way. I have no problem with anything other (eg. the shop). Also usually when I play some game which is fill-rate limited and having very low FPS the sound/music isn't discontinuous as in this case.

1. Turret reloading indicator needed. It's not obvious currently. Reloading should take shorter time if turret still has some ammo left.

2. Level completion indicator needs to be clearer, the one at the top-right corner looks like a health bar, I'd recommend something like a clock or a horizontal progress bar.

3. Right-mouse clicking is annoying me. It brings up menu, and it's also used to cancel. It confuses me.

4. Recent used tower icons at the bottom is confusing, the order is never the same. Pressing 1 doesn't always give me the blaster turret. You need to keep this order the same, and possibly list all available buildings/turrets at the bottom in just one order and map to one key only. Consistency is key.

5. Factory should be called something else. The name "factory" hints it is producing some units, which it is not, it is extracting minerals/gems. Call it an Extractor. Much more obvious. I did not build factory at first, because it wasn't too natural to me what it would do for me.

6. Wave-control of baddies. Sure, it's OK as it is, but... it doesn't give me anxiety! Now, Left 4 Dead gives me anxiety! I'd do what L4D does. Always keep baddies coming at you slowly, then when the player progresses too far, gets a factory, or builds a blaster far from his base, the game would produce lots of fast moving horde to attack it.

7. They should be coming at you from more directions than just one (haven't played further than level 6, so maybe this is not a problem).

8. Terrain is desert-like. Is Europe a desert? :/ Making environment city-like, as you have in Titan Attacks, might be difficult. Maybe you are already planning this. Don't get me wrong, the desert looks nice, but if I'm defending Paris or London then, well, it shouldn't be a desert, unless I'm in Sahara, Nevada, or where there is a desert.

9. Some mission goals perhaps? Currently it is only "Don't lose your main base building!". Since you're defending Earth, why not give it extra mission goals such as "Defend the Eiffel tower of Paris!" or "Defend the village!". That can make each level more unique and give more strategic depth to the gameplay, whereas you have multiple focuses and makes you feel like you're actually defending Earth, and no just some wasteland.

10. Being able to sell buildings/turrets would be useful.

11. Off-map area is black. Not sure what to suggest, maybe black is just fine. Or, you could make it a desert or just fill it up with rocks. Oh well, just squeezing out some points to write here.

12. It has a steeper learning curve than Titan Attacks. I would recommend having a learning level, where you would guide the player to construct each building and explain it's purpose.

13. Each level possibly needs a boss at the end, some scary noisy boss. (edit: I notice that at the end of each planet there is a boss).

14. Fast paced flying baddies?

Ok, I did enjoy the game. Took me a few levels to get into. Great graphics and it plays very smoothly here, seems like a very finished game to me . But, I have a feeling this game needs to bring the anxiety level of the player up. That's why I recommended the L4D fast moving hordes with fast paced music to match. This experience is currently rather flat, the baddies come at you very slowly, you can see them all, they sometimes go around and back before actually making their attack, giving you plenty time to relax. The player should be scared each time he sees a new wave coming out, not going to grab himself a cup of tea. Possibly, some baddies should walk normally at first, and when they get closer to your turrets, they should run at it to attack it.

Overall, with some tweaks, mainly gameplay balancing and tweaking, I think you'll be able to make this into a sellable game. Nice job.

Finished the first 10 levels, the only problem I had was that when clicking on money bags and so on I sometimes ended up building a tower, and I didn't have the time to cancel a tower before clicking or it'd be gone...

Ran great, fun game, did first 8 levels, only thing i did not like is something others already mentioned, clicking on money bag or other popups built your item there. I assume it would get harder farther along because it was pretty easy so far.

Try it on my only comptuter that can run OpenGL (old laptop). It run very slow (probably because of my crappy computer).

- It was really easy so far.- Enemy are movement are very slow (might be because of my laptop)- I could stop an entire wave just by building a capacitor at the right place (is it normal?)- When you build turret, enemy try to avoid it. So they make a big circle around it avoiding it's firing range. So they all pass at the same place (build a capacitor there and kill them slowly). Maybe they should charge the turret when they can overun them.

The game look like some kind of tower defense where the enemy only try to reach the main building. Maybe they should be more strategic : destroying your defense when they can rather than avoiding it.

Good game so far. I like the graphics, the music and the overall gameplay.

Level 12 doesn't finish? Maybe because I built close to the edge of the map?

I didn't find it very difficult. I build a few turrets to stop the trickle of enemies, then I drop a capacitor right in a big group of enemies and smoke a bunch of them. Granted this doesn't work when enemies are coming from multiple directions.

I see enemies try to avoid turrets, and sometimes this makes a group of turrets useless, but by the time they have walked any distance I usually have generated the cash to build another group of turrets. The concrete walls make it easy to cut off enemies and make them waste their time while I generate cash.

I agree that the game needs more tension. Maybe enemies rush a turret once they get close enough. A turret with no concrete in front would get taken down quickly. Invisible enemies? Fog of war? Prevent building X distance from other buildings?

The game is very well done. The learning curve on the units is fine. I understand keeping the levels easy during learning. The interface is good, nice and simple. There are many places you could take this, I think it will be a great game!

I played right to the end (level 20) and can agree with most points Appel makes (seriously!)

Main points: => rightclick should not bring up the mainmenu (if possible, please get rid of the menu somehow) => the buttons in the bottom must have a fixed order, so i can simply hit a key on my keyboard and know which building i'm about to build. => it doesn't feel like there is a learning curve, => there is no need to build advanced structures: i can finish most levels using the basics: scanners and (light) blasters. the heavy stuff has sever disadvantages as they are both expensive, and so you have only a few, and you have a huge problem when they run out of ammo. with light blasters you can build a bunch and you won't really find yourself running out of ammo all at the same time. => the end boss should be much much harder. I killed the endboss on the moon with 6 light blasters. => call the factory a refinery

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One thing is, the gameplay is a bit slow and repetitive, I realize this is an early build and only the first 10 or so maps but just giving you a heads up of what my initial reaction was. Also, I agree with the general idea of keeping the quick bar the same, as I kept getting lost when the 3 icons would switch around. Also I really dont like that it takes over my mouse, but these are just minor details. Overally I really enjoyed the game and it looks GREAT!

I get nothing. I get the WS java 6 splash screen. Then nothing, no errors, no missing this or that, no link errors, just nothing. Starting from the command line also gives no errors or anything. Nothing to play.

I get nothing. I get the WS java 6 splash screen. Then nothing, no errors, no missing this or that, no link errors, just nothing. Starting from the command line also gives no errors or anything. Nothing to play.

It ran just fine on my Mac Pro, in both Mac OSX 10.6 and Windows 7 64-bit.

LOVE the graphic style (as always with Chaz's work).

Gameplay seems to progress nicely, and I enjoy the overall mechanic.

I think it would be nicer to stay on the same level a bit longer with multiple, increasing (in numbers) waves of baddies. I feel like I just got my defenses set up and then WHAM! I'm hit with everything and the level is over. I didn't play too far into it though, so maybe this happens later?

Also, I'm a somewhat slow reader, and had a hard time keeping up with some of the between-level dialog boxes. They would disappear before I could finish reading the longer ones. Maybe prompt for continuation?

An auto-save between levels would be nice too.

I'll come back with more later when I've found another chance to play. It's looking really nice!

Ran fine initially, but around 80% of the way through (I think) Level 3 it started stuttering badly (sound effects all choppy, single figure frames-per-sec at times). It ran fine again as soon as the level ended, but the problem reappeared on the next level. That's for Vista, Java 6 update 13, Nvidia GeForce 9500M (I don't remember having ever updated the drivers).

The game's presentation is (predictably) superb. But I'm not entirely convinced by the game's controls, and I bet you have a devil of a time getting the balance of the levels right.

My main problem with the controls was that (not having mastered the keyboard short-cuts) I ended up having to open a menu every time I wanted to do anything. That really spoils the flow of the game, and I bet it's a turn off for a lot of casual players. Throwing out a few suggestions:- If the game map didn't scroll then my keyboard hand would be better able to deal with selecting which unit to build.- How about having a small unit-selection menu pop-up if you hold down the mouse button at a point where you want to build something?- Could you start with a simple mouse-only control scheme for the first few levels, and then gradually introduce menus and keyboard controls as the game progresses?

Introducing a new unit type for each level is fun, but it doesn't give me as much time as I'd like to experiment with them all. I kept finding myself playing with the new unit types at the start of each level, and subsequently not having enough cash to fight off the invaders. How about this? When a new unit type is first introduced, you don't get to build any, but one or two are automatically positioned on the map for you. That way you get to play with them, but you don't have to invest time and money to do so.

I will endeavour I think to make the Earth levels even smaller and shorter so they're not quite so dull and over faster. As in, less than a screen in size for the first few levels.

I'm going to keep the difficulty the same, however; Earth really is a tutorial, all 10 levels of it - I don't want anyone failing to fairly easily beat the boss at the end of it. By the end of the Moon, however, I should hope that you're getting a bit of a sweat on, so I'll be tuning that somewhat. Mines vs. boss are indeed too powerful, I'll be adjusting that The Moon boss also has half as many hitpoints as he should have - whoops. And doesn't move quite quickly enough. And yes, text will spill off the screen for the Moon because we haven't actually done the story screens for the Moon properly yet

I like the suggestion of "Refinery" for the Factory building name.

I really don't think there's much I can do about the right mouse button / menu interface - there just isn't enough screen real estate to do it and besides, I think this is an interface that casual players will be more happy with ultimately.

You will be needing bigger guns on the Moon as there are armoured aliens which are mostly immune to shotguns and light blaster fire.

The Moon is the end of the "demo" levels. Mars is where I start introducing all the crazy new stuff the aliens start getting up to - there's aliens which spawn loads of little gidlets (which can only be shot by your own micro-robots made in special droid factories), aliens which split when shot, wraiths that just float through rocks and are invisible to blaster fire (you need to use capacitors to take them out), flying aliens, aliens that shoot, clever aliens that specifically attack your turrets to clear the way for the main force, heavily armoured aliens immune to everything except explosives, etc. And the bosses start making guest appearances mid-world. And the crystals start getting further and further away from the base, and the levels get larger and rather a lot longer. So yes, Mars is where it starts getting properly challenging.

1) Building Menu, it is really fiddle to keep on switching to/from game to just place a building. A better option would maybe have a visible toolbar with tooltips for selecting buildings to place. There is small toolbar atm (3 items?) but still not enough to avoid going into the building menu.(Desktop Tower Defences is a nice example)

2) Clicking factories to collect resources. Pretty irritating atm, I'd much rather concentrate on positioning towers nicely and thinking what to do next but the factories keep pestering to be clicked, maybe the factories just collect too fast, you do get that automatic collector thing later but still a bit annoying. Maybe just start factories with a slow rate of collection instead and later have a power up to speed up collecting with auto collecting enabled by default on factories. You could also maybe have little robots that drop of resources from the factory to the main base to add a further challenge as they are at risk from enemies and you would have to also think about protecting supply lines.

2) Clicking factories to collect resources. Pretty irritating atm, I'd much rather concentrate on positioning towers nicely and thinking what to do next but the factories keep pestering to be clicked, maybe the factories just collect too fast, you do get that automatic collector thing later but still a bit annoying. Maybe just start factories with a slow rate of collection instead and later have a power up to speed up collecting with auto collecting enabled by default on factories. You could also maybe have little robots that drop of resources from the factory to the main base to add a further challenge as they are at risk from enemies and you would have to also think about protecting supply lines.

Why not do it like Plants vs. Zombies where you just need to mouseover the buildings?

I'm going to keep the difficulty the same, however; Earth really is a tutorial, all 10 levels of it - I don't want anyone failing to fairly easily beat the boss at the end of it. By the end of the Moon, however, I should hope that you're getting a bit of a sweat on, so I'll be tuning that somewhat. Mines vs. boss are indeed too powerful, I'll be adjusting that The Moon boss also has half as many hitpoints as he should have - whoops. And doesn't move quite quickly enough. And yes, text will spill off the screen for the Moon because we haven't actually done the story screens for the Moon properly yet

I agree that the first level should not be that challenging, but really, at about the 7th level I was already starting to get bored because I could beat all stages so far with no challange whatsoever . Assuming you're making 20 levels available for demo, I think you should show a little challenge a little earlier . Maybe on stage 6 or 7 . After 5 levels the player surely got a grip on the game and is probably already expecting some challenge . The player might get bored before reaching the "challenging" levels and that's it .

No need to put a hard as hell level 6, but really, after 10 levels I didnt had a single damage on my base .

I also agree with the ammo coloring that somebody said, for me it's unclear when it's recharching/full.

All in all it is very polished and well made game, but I think you should fine tune the difficult to make sure players will still be attracted to your game until it reaches de most hardcore levels .

Why not do it like Plants vs. Zombies where you just need to mouseover the buildings?

As far as I remember, you have to click the little suns to collect them, not just mouseover . Anyway , I dont find thaaat annoying, but the fact is that sometimes I completely forget about the factories ... but nothing that prevents me from finishing the level .

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